Month: April 2018

It is clear to me that people say one thing and mean something entirely different.

Why? I don’t know but if I find out I will let you know.

I imagine it is because they feel like a horrible person if they tell the truth, maybe? I can’t think of any other reason.

Personally I think honesty is always the best policy, especially in this game, It is frustrating that people are not more honest with each other.

I am not saying that it doesn’t smart a bit when you get rejected, it does. The trouble with the truth is, it often smarts a bit. They say; if you don’t want to know the answer don’t ask the question but if you do want to know the answer be prepared not to like it.

I am prepared not to like it.

I have been on a fair few dates now and I have had my fair share of ‘on the spot’ moments. It isn’t particularly pleasant telling someone you don’t want to see them again but you just have to. What is the point of saying you do, when you really don’t?

I am always polite, I say thank you for what has hopefully been a lovely couple of hours but if I do not want to see them again I say so and by the same token I will say if I do. This does not mean that I expect the feelings to be reciprocated either way but either way, I do expect honesty.

For the most part my previous dates have been unsuccessful because I have not wanted to take them further. However, on the occasions where I have wanted to, I have been lead to believe that my date feels the same until that is, it comes to arranging to meet again.

I get the impression that men find it much more difficult to be upfront about these things. I’m sure not all men (not tarring everyone with the same brush) but on the whole my experience has shown me that maybe men think we are too fragile to be told the truth or maybe they think we just wont handle it very well, that we are likely to break down or cause a scene? We wont. I promise.

We move on, quickly. In this disposable society we now find ourselves in, nothing is irreplaceable.

Even before Friday I think I knew that Cheung would not turn out to be what I had hoped. There is a tiny tinge of sadness in that but only because of the build up to it all. The build up is the exciting bit, the bit that immediately becomes less exciting the moment you meet, purely because you have now replaced your minds image with the real thing and it does not come anywhere close.

That is not to say that you are not pleased with the specimen standing before you or that you wont have a very enjoyable time but it all becomes more real and less of a fantasy, which is as it should be as fantasies are very hard to live up to.

Everything in life is an experience and if you can continue to see it this way you will never really be disappointed with anything. Don’t get me wrong I have made some truly stupid mistakes, misjudged people and had my fair share of ups and downs but life is supposed to be like that. Life doesn’t come with a map or guide-book or anything that helps you choose which path to take it just lets you make your decisions as you go along.

Life is fun and can be exhilarating and wonderful but it can be frustrating and hard work and feel just a tiny bit tiresome sometimes, the little highs and lows can sometimes outshine the massive achievements and catastrophic calamities because they are a daily occurrence.

It is all a learning curve though, every experience good and bad is just that, an experience and moving on is the only way you benefit from it.

Football again this morning. It was bloody freezing but I have to say I am getting in to the spirit of it all. Today we ventured in to East Sussex for the last match of the season, a match that has been re-scheduled a fair few times due to our inclement weather.

The pitch was atop a lovely lofty hill surrounded by the ordinarily very beautiful Sussex countryside, the view had you have been able to see it would have normally been spectacular, as it was the wind chill was putting us all off of turning around to look at it. It was a grey day to say the least. However spots of rain and biting wind were not going to dampen our spirits as we camped out along the line ready to cheer our boys on.

The thing I love most about football is that it’s a very shouty sport. It took me a while to feel comfortable enough to let my shouty out but now she is out, there wont be any putting her back again.

Football is a Dad sport, for the most part anyway. I am one of only two Mum’s who are regularly pitch side, and when I say regularly I mean every week, come rain or shine. I have seen other Mum’s but they are the fair-weather variety who usually only come to home games and pop along for half an hour towards the end to socialize. I am hardcore, mostly because I have to be, granted.

I am Mum and Dad and that gives me the right to shout as loudly as I like. I can give those Dads a run for their money, even if I don’t understand the rules and it clear to most, that I do not know the rules. This means sometimes I shout at the wrong times but no one will ever accuse me of not being supportive.

Where I will give men some credit is that they are far less judgemental than women. It doesn’t matter to them who I am, what I drive or even what I look like, I am just a football mum.

They do not care that I don’t know the rules. Or at least I don’t think they do, one has tried to explain the rules but I don’t get it. I don’t need to. I just shout when we have the ball and shout when we don’t. It is really quite liberating.

Bearing in mind that we joined towards the end of the season it was a little bit daunting at first and not just for Tom. I was very nervous about having to ingratiate myself with this very alpha male bunch especially as I knew nothing about the game other than it is very, very competitive, even at this level.

However, I have been already become part of the fixtures, I’m the goalies Mum, who is a bit of cranky mare, she turns up looking like she just rolled out of bed, with her wild hair and the most ridiculous looking snow boots you have ever seen and she screams like a banshee and no-one cares.

Today we won the last match of the season. Tom is slowly growing in confidence and it is really starting to show in his game. We have finished third in the league and that is brilliant but almost more brilliant than that is, we have a week off next week… woo hoo! I have almost forgotten what a lazy Sunday morning is like.

I am very much looking forward to my next one though. I might even buy a more expensive brand of coffee this week as I will have time to enjoy it.

Elsie has bagged a shopping trip next weekend, so I will definitely need a lie in Sunday.

This weekend has mostly been Tom orientated, well it was his birthday. Yesterday we were at the indoor skate park most of the day with his friends and today it has been all about football.

It has been another great weekend but this week, I will be glad to get back to work for a rest.

Monday morning came around very quickly indeed, a bit too quickly to be fair and after a lovely long and very sunny weekend, I wasn’t ready for it all to be over.

What started with my very enjoyable and much-anticipated date with Cheung, ended with lovely catch-ups with some friends, a bit of gadding about and just generally enjoying what felt like the start of Summer. It had indeed been a really lovely weekend.

The drag back to work on Monday made all the harder for it.

Fortunately the good weather never usually hangs around for long and by midweek we were plunged back into average temperatures for the time of year, along with a slight dusting of rain, so I soon re-adjusted.

Cheung phoned me twice Friday living up to his promise to prank call me often. 😉 He just wanted to tell me that he had very much enjoyed meeting me and he hoped we could meet again? He said for me to call him anytime and let him know when I was free… Ummm… Hold on a moment… Weren’t you taking charge from here on in? STOP making me make decisions!

I said I would call him, what else could I say? It seems the ball is still firmly in my court.

After that, silence resumed again.

The funny thing with silence is the longer you leave it the deadlier it becomes. You fall in to the shall I, shan’t I camp and it is a really shitty camp to be in. For an indecisive person like me it is awful.

So to cut a long and not very interesting story short, I called him Monday evening. It took some encouragement and the threat of violence from the buddies if I so much as dared to turn up on Tuesday having not completed my task but I did it.

He didn’t answer. Don’t panic, he called me back. Phew! I did panic a lot in between actually.

We chatted, all was normal, we said we would try to meet at the weekend, chatted for a bit longer and now we are back in the quiet zone.

So I shall wait…

I don’t like waiting, patience is not one of my virtues, not that I have many.

The down side to waiting is that I am easily distracted, it will not take much to divert my attention. The trouble with all this is that while you are talking to one person usually you are conversing with several others, it is just the way it works. Much like buses, they all seem to come along at once.

I will meet Cheung again, of course I will. Well I hope I will but who knows, for whatever reason it may not happen. It is a waiting game.

I will not give up without a bit of a fight but I will need to feel that this, whatever this is, is at least reciprocal. Otherwise, what on earth is the point?

In other news it is Tom’s birthday Friday. He made it. Well he has almost made it, to the grand old age of 12. Since his last birthday things have been a bit shaky to say the least. I wasn’t entirely convinced he was going to make it to his pre-teen year in one piece, nevermind alive but he has limped on, literally.

He has an extremely long list of gadgetry he would like for his birthday, none of which is even remotely within budget. However, he is going to get a new mobile phone as he has broken, yes broken, his second one.

If I have told him once I have told him one hundred times that his phone is right up there with his life in respect of value. Life first, phone second, everything else a very low third. You see the trouble is that kids can’t live without their mobile phones but they are incredibly expensive, so expensive that they can not just be replaced willy nilly.

If you are flinging yourself around on your scooter while trying to capture these highly technical moments on camera and you fail, you have a very important choice to make in an instant.

You, the scooter or the phone?

The phone comes last on the list! A broken leg will mend, the scooter, which granted, was almost as expensive as the bloody phone can be lived without but the phone, NO! I will not keep replacing your bloody phones because you keep throwing yourself off a half-pipe.

This is your last chance son, after this it will be a Nokia brick for you, for a very, very long time! Instagram will be a thing of the past.

I cut Elsie’s hair this week.

I did not want to cut Elsie’s hair and I really tried to talk her out of it, to no avail. Elsie does not like her new hair. I knew that Elsie would not like her new hair but Elsie seems to forget that I am not a bloody hairdresser.

That awful moment when she looked in the mirror and I could see tears springing to her eyes nearly felled me.

I had only cut one piece of hair at the side but it was too short. Of course it was too bloody short, only trouble now is you have to finish what you started. She has always had fairly long hair and has always wanted a bob, now she has a bob she wants her fairly long hair back. *sigh

Later after she and I had calmed down a fraction she said she felt marginally better about the whole thing. “It doesn’t look too bad now I’ve got my eyebrows on,” she says. If only you could draw hair on with a pencil too, we’d be laughing.

The weekend still feels like a very long way off. Although I have just realised I only have tomorrow to go.

I have booked Friday out, just incase. I live in hope that Cheung will arrive to whisk me off my feet, or at least meet me for lunch again. Let’s start small. Should I go white or Ivory? *jokes

One thing I find so lovely about blogging is the support, knowledge and general comradery of other bloggers. What once felt like a scary place is now becoming much more like home because of my fellow bloggers, nijntje in particular but many of you have commented and shared thoughts and sent good wishes and for that I love you all, just a little bit. 😉

Rules:

Thank the person who nominated you.

Post a quote for three consecutive days (1 quote for each day).

Share why this quote appeals so much to you.

Nominate 3 different bloggers for each day.

Todays Quote:

I am a sucker for a bit of romance. Surprised?

I rarely admit that I have always loved a fairytale. I believe in the happy ever after. I still believe that one day someone will choose me. We will choose each other and I will find my perfect fit.

He of course will not be perfect but just perfect for me and I will love him, wholeheartedly.

I feel a twinge of sadness sometimes that I have never felt or come close to feeling the way I often took for granted that I would one day. I expected my Prince Charming to come riding along on his steed and I can never give up hope of this happening, no matter that the odds are getting smaller.

It is not that I can not live without it but more that I don’t want to have lived and never felt it.

Nominations:

Anyone who wants to join in. Be inspirational, funny, empowering, or a little bit giddy just be whatever you want to be….

If you looked at Cheung your first thought would probably be a misjudgment. If I’m honest I think that is intentional on his part. Is it confusing? Yes. Without a doubt.

I don’t know if any of you realised but I was anxious about meeting Cheung. I needn’t have been. Was he how I imagined him to be? No, not entirely but people never usually are. I’m learning that as I go.

I am struggling in my mind to portray him on paper.

Once again there was silence in between our conversation on Wednesday about meeting Friday and the actual day itself. I was left assuming that we would just meet as agreed unless I heard otherwise and seeing as I had heard nothing, I was going.

I went to work in the morning. Whether that was the best place for me is still up for discussion, my mind wasn’t exactly on the job but I would have been even worse at home.

At 12.30 pm on the day, he messaged:

Hey.. Still on for today? 0**** 78*****Call me 🙂

Call me? When? Now? Oh God, do I have to? Looking immediately to the buddies, who both just looked at me with a ‘well.. go and call him’ look. I called him.

He sounded nothing like I expected. A deeper, richer but slightly gruff voice that instantly had me at ease. My misconception that he was going to be all upstairs/downstairs flew straight out the window.

He confirmed that he was about to leave and should be at the restaurant at the agreed time and providing all was ok with me, he would see me then. All was very ok with me and despite my normal first date anxiousness, I was very much looking forward to it.

He called me again shortly after our first phone call just to let me know that now he had my number he would be prank calling me every five minutes. Actually he wasn’t sure he was heading to the right place and after confirming the postcode he said goodbye, again.

I arrived before him, the car park is quite big at this particular pub and so I wasn’t sure of that at first. It was another very warm day and there was no way I could linger in my car, unless I wanted to look like a sweaty tomato when I got out, so I loitered by my car for a few minutes trying to decide whether I should call him or not.

Just as I was about to call he arrived, not quite on two wheels but almost. I knew it was him straight away. It was the hair that did it. The unmistakable sight of a bun.

It seemed to take him ages to remove himself from his vehicle but eventually there he was. Tall, almost bordering on lanky and slim, almost bordering on skinny, he had the widest smile I have ever seen, the kind of smile that is contagious.

I am going to have trouble describing Cheung, in fact I have been having trouble with it.

For two days now I have been trying to describe him in my own head and I can’t. He is a complete contradiction. He looks one thing and is clearly something very different. He is very serious but laughs like he might explode at any moment. He has a love of poetry but tells the rudest jokes I have ever heard and I think his shoes were more expensive than his car.

I liked him. Even though I felt slightly off kilter the whole time.

He was every inch the gentleman, even though he ate like hadn’t eaten for months, where he put it I have no idea. We had wine and talked and laughed, well he talked, I laughed. He talks a lot and I mean a lot. I barely got a word in and I can talk for England.

After lunch we sat outside in the courtyard, it was lovely and sunny. The pub garden overlooks the beautiful countryside of Kent, there are Oast Houses in the distance and the view is amazing, the sky was mid blue and completely cloudless, we sat just looking out over the fields and talked.

We talk about families, our jobs, our lives. He tells me his hair is long because he just hasn’t got around to going to the Barbers, simple as that. He is not fussed about following trends nor does he care to be thought off for anything other than what he does and how he behaves. The more I learn about him the more I decide he is an overachiever, although he disagrees with that. Then as he disagrees with me, the waitress takes our glasses, she is Polish and in less than a minute I am listening to the two of them speaking together in her native tongue.

He is clearly not fluent and she corrects him and laughs with him as they talk but the delight on her face is clearly evident, she is overjoyed with the fact that he is even able to try and quite frankly so am I.

If he was trying to impress me, it worked.

I could have sat there all night.

When he told me I was much more beautiful in the flesh and that he would like to see me again, I was done.

We chatted some more and then because we couldn’t have anymore wine and water just has you trotting off to the toilet every five minutes, we agreed to call it a night, until next time.

I did it. It was over with.

We walked out to our cars and said goodbye, as I drove away I couldn’t help but think that he was nothing like I expected yet in a funny way he was everything I expected him to be.

A grey sea. Vast, deep and relatively smooth on the surface but never to be underestimated.

These challenges are a great way of exploring and finding other blogs to read and enjoy, if you haven’t already found nijntje’s blog, it is really worth the time exploring. 🙂

Rules:

Thank the person who nominated you.

Post a quote for three consecutive days (1 quote for each day).

Share why this quote appeals so much to you.

Nominate 3 different bloggers for each day.

Todays Quote:

“Don’t be afraid”

We are all scared sometimes, we are human. We are not invincible and sometimes we will fail but to fail we have to try, if we have tried, then in some small way we have already succeeded.

It takes courage to push past the easy and the comfortable and take a step in to the unknown, to lay yourself open to failure, criticism or pain but without experiencing these things we will never know what it feels like to achieve the true highs of life.

If there is one thing I would like my children to have it is courage. Be bold, take life and run with it, see things, do things, try, try and try again. Love, laugh and cry and don’t be afraid of any of it.

It has been a real joy to explore your blog and I am still enjoying reading through your early posts.

Rules:

Thank the person who nominated you.

Post a quote for three consecutive days (1 quote for each day).

Share why this quote appeals so much to you.

Nominate 3 different bloggers for each day.

Todays Quote:

I love this quote because it is so simple.

I had every intention of starting this challenge tomorrow but I am sitting in the garden, with Tom and Elsie waiting for some friends to arrive. It is another beautiful day.

Elsie is colouring, Tom is kicking a ball about. They are in charge of the tunes, it is a mixed bag as they both have very different taste, we have snacks and we are telling stories and laughing at and with each other and it suddenly occurred to me how lovely it all is, at this exact moment in time.

One day there will be no more of these moments, they will be grown and off doing their own thing and although there will be other moments, there will never be this moment.

I am all for the simple things in life. It really is the small things that make the biggest difference. Those random things that make you laugh till your sides hurt. That tiny gesture which makes you swell inside.

Life is busy and sometimes stressful, we can be guilty of not making time for ourselves and for others, so take those moments as often as you can because all to soon those moments will become memories.

Two things frightened me today. The first thing was my bloody face and the other, which was actually scarier than my face was the thought that I had upset one of the buddies.

Let’s start with my face.

What I think I am going to see in the mirror is not what I actually see. This disturbs me.

I am getting old, fact. I am not worried by this generally. I quite like being the age I am now, I’d like not to get any older but that isn’t going to happen, well not unless I die so if that’s the only alternative I think I’ll take old age, thanks all the same.

However, my face actually scared me a little today. Some mirrors are definitely not for the faint hearted and the one in the toilets at work ages you by ten years at least.

It suddenly hit me today while examining my lined and fairly spotty face (I can only assume this is hormone related), that in real life I look what I am. A 46-year-old woman and one who seems to be going through puberty again!

This is troubling me because I am meeting Cheung on Friday. Yes, it’s true. We have confirmed a date. #giddy

I’ll tell you what put me in to a tailspin the likes of which I haven’t had for ages and it was a message from the man himself.

He asked me to choose a time and place to meet, which I did and then messaged him with details, 2 pm along with the link to a nice little country pub I had chosen for lunch. Later he replied to say, that it looked lovely and that he was very much looking forward to it as the weather was going to be beautiful…just like you. *smileyface

Just like me!

Instantly this made me re-check the photo I had sent him. It’s a nice, well nice.. ish, photo but the most important thing about this bloody photo is that it was taken in good light.

Now I understand what photographers mean when they say that almost anything can look good with great lighting because now I have concrete evidence that good light makes a huge difference.

When I look at the photo even I think I look young, so that must mean it doesn’t look a bit like me! Why? Because the person staring back at me from the harshly lit mirror in the toilet today looked every bit her 46 years and more. Every line, wrinkle and blemish stood up loud and proud and very clearly visible.

I am being completely irrational about all of this, I am well aware of that. I also know that by being completely irrational and expecting to much of him and of myself it will lead to disappointment. I am trying to be rational but I am failing miserably. I keep trying to talk myself out of it, at the moment I am in love with the idea of it all, in my head is where it will remain lovely, and idyllic, I am quite happy to leave it there. Safely tucked away in the corner of my mind.

If I meet him on Friday it all becomes a reality and I don’t want it to be real, not now. At this precise moment in time there is hope but what will have happened to hope by Friday evening?

I suppose we will have to wait and see.

I feel like I have lots to share at the moment but never seem to find the time to share it.

As I write I am sitting in a field not far from where we live as the football training venue has changed now Summer is here, well for the moment it is here. How long it will last is anyones guess but training is now outside on home turf, it is closer to home by about 15 minutes or so and that works for me. It is still not quite close enough to go home and come back again though, so here I am in a field, half day dreaming and half writing.

It is a beautiful evening, still warm and very peaceful, a train goes by every now then but otherwise it is very relaxing indeed. Every so often my mind drifts to Friday and I have to pull it back again before I start trying to think of an excuse not to go.

Argh. I need to stop thinking about it!

It will take me a long time to explain what happened at work today, well not so much what happened but why it happened.

Mostly it was born out of sheer frustration, frustration about our workloads, well not mine in particular but the buddies workloads. The demands from the Doctors and the patients are becoming increasingly difficult to manage. The doctors, short on time themselves are pushing more work back on to us, understandably so but with the demands of the patients as well, the expectations that people have in general these days on service providers, even ours is out of control.

Today was just one of those days where the workload was increasing at a rate of knots but actioning and completing anything was seemingly impossible. Unable to get hold of anyone in the hospitals, no responses to emails, lack of answers, headway, anything really. It is hard going. Patients chasing us, us chasing the hospitals and neither one of us getting anywhere fast.

By lunchtime, which was later than normal today as there was so much to do, the buddies were frazzled. Now, I feel at this point I should say that we get on extremely well us three, we are very like-minded, however, this does not mean we always agree. In relationships of any kind it is not compulsory for you to always agree.

Despite my being quite opinionated and a bit of a loud mouth I really do detest confrontation. I dislike bad feeling and certainly do not ever intend to offend people intentionally. Well for the most part. I mean some people do just rub you up the wrong way but not my buddies. I could never fall out with either of them, it would kill me.

I had to keep checking all afternoon that we were actually ok and we are, of course we are. I would never have let it end any other way. I made the mistake and I made sure it was rectified.

There was no way I could have left it unsettled.

If I had to go and check a million times that everything was ok between us I would have done.

It’s been a long day and this has taken far longer than expected, I wanted to tell you some other things tonight but I have run out of time and energy now. I have also made myself promise to get to bed at a reasonable time in an effort to appear more fresh as a daisy on Friday. I need all the help I can get.

It has been a beautiful weekend. It feels at last like Summer is on the way and I for one can not wait.

I love the Summer, long days, sunshine and blue skies, being able to hang your washing out makes the house look less like a chinese laundry and more like a home. It is one of the tiny pleasures of Summer. For me though the greatest pleasure is coming home from work and being able to sit in the garden, to relax and unwind in the sunshine. We often eat outside in the Summer and in the Summer holidays the rule book goes out the window, we laze and graze and play and have late nights and even later mornings (when I’m not working), we completely chill out.

This weekend has been a little taster of that, it was sunny and fairly warm and it just makes you feel better. It lifts your spirits and gets you motivated.

Elsie I were on a mission to get things done. Tom had disappeared off with his mates and we cracked on with getting rid of Winter and embracing Summer. Changing the beds, hibernating the extra Winter layers, packing all the boots and coats up and moving the unused wood and fire supplies back outside until Autumn arrives again. The windows were open and the music was blasting.

This morning even football was much more pleasant than usual because it was such a lovely morning. It was an early start 7:30 am which on a Sunday really does need some motivation but it is so much easier when the sun is out. Dare I say I even enjoyed it, basking in the lovely sunshine and not worrying about getting wet, cold and feeling more miserable than the weather and we won, hooray!

This week has been a mixture of work and play.

We went bowling on one of our play days. We all love bowling, it is one of our favourite things to do, we are all quite competitive. At the moment us three, that is Tom, Elsie and I are all getting along famously, we have reached a point where we enjoy each others company. They are both developing good humours and we all three of us love a bit of banter, it was great fun and we had a blast. They are getting far to good at it now though and I do not like losing!

However a day (actually not even a day, just a few hours) out like this is not cheap, Bowling and lunch at a famous Italian American restaurant, along with a side trip to the supermarket on the way home for late night movie snacks and you can safely say goodbye to one hundred pounds.

The holidays are definitely becoming more expensive, especially with them having trips out with their friends to.

Tom has been wining and dining his new love in the holidays, she is in the year above him at school, so Elsie tells me. He can’t have dated all the year 7 girls already surely? Why can’t he stick to throwing himself off a half-pipe? It’s so much safer than dating. Besides, I can’t afford for us both to have a love life.

Talking of love lives, or lack thereof…

My last lengthy chat with Cheung was on Wednesday, he seemed particularly chatty and much more relaxed than on previous occasions, the night before we had agreed that we would postpone our meet until the following week.

On Wednesday he admitted to having a couple of glasses of wine and it definitely loosened his tongue. He was telling me about his family, his sisters and the fact that he had mentioned to one of them that he was intending to meet someone. He also mentioned that it had occurred to him again that he still didn’t have any idea what I looked or even what my name was. He wasn’t sure he liked being on the back foot.

In the early days of our messaging I asked him if he wanted to see a picture of me but he declined saying that he liked the enigma of it all, he was happy for me to remain a mystery for now, I have never offered since. However, I now felt I should offer again.

It is unusual for people not to request a picture. In fact most request one before they will even engage in messaging. Most assume that if you do not have a profile picture it is because you are married or you have something to hide. Most people do not take any time to read a profile, they see a picture and they decide, but if you do not have a picture or you have a quote instead or an image taken from the internet, then it is almost certainly a trap.

The most common message of all goes a little something like this:

Send me a photo. I know what you are looking for and I can give it to you. Don’t keep me waiting.

The last part is just so I know that they are quite clearly in charge, of course.

So while Cheung was three sheets to the wind I took opportunity to send him a picture, well you know what they say about beer goggles. It had to work in my favour surely? It was a right here right now picture, as I was at that exact moment in time, sitting on the sofa in a black jumper with my all day hair and make-up still just about intact.

While I waited for the reply to come it dawned on me that I should just add a picture to my profile, it has got to be easier than going through this rigmarole every time. The wait for any kind of response is agonising, especially if you are hoping for a good one. Often I try to send pictures quite quickly, not bothered either way as to the response because if you haven’t really engaged or you are not entirely convinced it will go anywhere it doesn’t matter but with Cheung it is different, for obvious reasons.

He liked it. Or at least he said he did and I am happy with that. Beer goggles or not!

It was late so I thanked him and logged off. The next morning I had a message to say that he was still very much looking forward to meeting me and he hoped I had a very enjoyable day. I returned with the same sentiment and spent the day sitting on a little cloud in the sky.

Also on Wednesday, much earlier in the day I had a date.

Cameron is someone I had briefly chatted with a few weeks ago. It was so brief I never mentioned it at all, to anyone but although our conversation was brief he hinted that he would like to meet. He was a man of few words but lots of *winkyface’s.

He gave the impression that he was looking for a similar relationship to me, I was not convinced. However, we messaged on and off for about a week before agreeing to meet. He cancelled the first arrangement, then I cancelled the next one. Then I forgot all about him, until he messaged Tuesday suggesting we meet the following day. I agreed.

It was a pleasant hour or so spent in the local pub having a Tonic Water or two (driving again), he was nice. People moan about the use of the word nice but it is a very adequate word, nice is good, it is certainly better than nasty and he was just that, nice. He was quite forward but in a nice way, pleasant and certainly not rude. He was funny and good company and there was a certain amount of chemistry. I wouldn’t say I was hit by a lightening bolt but there was enough static to cause a bit of friction.

We talked about our interests and it seemed like we were on the same page. We both said what we liked and how we would like the relationship to unfold, if and when. We agreed that we were both ideally looking for a committed relationship in that we would see only each other and that we would have arranged time together to explore our interests it was decided that we would meet again, for a longer period, possibly an evening where we could relax a bit and get to know each other. We swapped numbers and parted company.

Since then, I’m back in the not convinced camp as there seems to be a huge elephant in the room.

He has messaged but they are frivolous messages and they always come attached to a horny devil emoji. He wants to meet but it seems he just wants to meet behind the bike sheds or behind anything really where he might get lucky. I have tried mentioning that this what not really what we talked about but so far it has fallen on deaf ears. His last message asked if he could meet me in my lunch break on Friday.

You see the trouble with saying things out loud is that once it’s out, there is no getting it back.

Usually that means it is exactly what you want to do.

Since starting this blog I have mentioned many people, mostly guys who I have been chatting to and those I have dated, well first dated, at least. I still haven’t got around to second dating anyone, for various reasons.

I get excited at the prospect of a new date or proposition and sometimes I find it difficult to hide that excitement. I get ahead of myself in a way that you feel like you might not necessarily have found the one but maybe the one right now. However, it usually turns out to be quite the opposite.

Once you have put pen to paper and laid all your thoughts out there for all to see, it is slightly embarrassing when you then have to say only a few days later, actually I didn’t hear from him again after that. The mere mention of his name out loud, so to speak and he was gone, in a puff of smoke and that is before you have even got as far meeting. Just the chat has put him off, or so it seems.

Once the initial contact has been made you message, not constantly but consistently over a period of days and it quickly becomes an investment, of sorts. Your time and your best efforts are put in to maintaining and remaining interested and interesting. So it is disheartening when you feel like you are making progress, for want of a better phrase, then all of a sudden, nothing.

Yesterday I thought that I had given Cheung the kiss of death.

I last heard from Cheung on Thursday when we were discussing the possibility of meeting this week, in fact it was originally going to be this evening.

In what was to be his last message, he said that he would be out-of-town for 8 weeks and whilst he would not be far away, it would be a little over an hours journey each way for us to meet and as he was not leaving until Monday, he felt Tuesday might be too early, so maybe Thursday would be better?

I replied dutifully to his message and said that Thursday was a possibility and he should let me know once he had settled in so we could make arrangements.

Then nothing.

Chatting to the buddies yesterday I joked about the blog being the kiss of death and that as soon as someone gets a mere mention on here they disappear, without warning, never to be heard from again. It’s like admitting that you like someone and you want it to be real and then you find out that they were never really interested in the first place but the very worst thing is not the fact that they were not interested. That bit is fine.

No. The worst bit is the fact that you now have to announce the fact that they were not interested. After telling everyone and anyone who will listen that you are a little bit bowled over, and slightly charmed and yadder, yadder, yadder you now have to admit that it was all pie in the sky, again.

However, I am delighted to announce that Cheung messaged this afternoon. Clearly settled in to his 8 week secondment to the backwaters of Kent he has asked if we could meet the next week. Yes, next week. It’s only Tuesday. Can I wait? If I want to see him I suppose I will have to.

It dawned on me then, that I probably shouldn’t have been expecting to hear from him. This is not a love story. I am not entirely sure what this is yet but it will not be entirely conventional, in that I shouldn’t expect messages unless he has something to say, maybe? Endless chit-chat is not really what either of us were aiming for.

He has made reference to the fact that he will be making the effort to drive the distance required to see me and back again, for which I expect I am to be truly grateful and I kind of am, in a most peculiar way. This makes me unsure though of whether I should offer to move the goal post slightly, should I perhaps meet him somewhere else, would it be presumptuous of me to offer to go to him, wherever that might be? Or should I just say thank you and stop bloody procrastinating.

I very much want to meet Cheung. Therefore, I will do whatever will make this easy.

I am intrigued by Cheung and if nothing else, or whatever else, I just would like to meet him.

If it is nothing else, then it is still good to meet new people, have new experiences and enjoy the company of others. Whatever will be, will be. We can’t force ourselves to like people and can’t force people to like us but we have to continue meeting people all the same. Part of what makes us change and evolve are our encounters with others. People come and go in our lives all the time but all of them leave a mark, good, bad or indifferent. If you are lucky you learn something new about yourself, if you are luckier still you just learn something new, full stop.

I have high expectations of Cheung and this will inevitably set me up for a fall. I know this but although I have high expectations of him, it is of him as a person, not for what might happen between us. I genuinely believe he will be one of a kind.

… and if an accolade like that doesn’t give him the kiss of death, then nothing will.

Thank you so much to thebarefootsub for nominating me for the One Lovely Blog Award.

Not in a million years did I ever…

The rules:

Thank the person who nominated you.

Share 7 things about yourself.

Nominate 7 other bloggers and inform them.

Here are 7 things about me:

I am not one for sharing. Until very recently I would never have been so open to anyone, even close friends, about what is happening in my life. I have always thought that you should not air your dirty laundry, so to speak.

I dance and sing all the time, not very well and often alone in the kitchen, when no one is looking. I love music of any kind.

I am always late. I try very hard not to be but obviously not hard enough.

As a kid I was a bit of a nerd, I read a lot but not stories. Q&A books and anything travel related, I like facts and trivia and would love to be brave enough to go on The Chase.

I want to be an Air Stewardess, always have. It is still on my bucket list.

I love life. I generally expect too much from it but I never give up hope that it will still surprise.

Technology still has the upper hand over me. It has taken me hours to just work out how to nominate someone else… you know, so you can actually click on their link. Thank God for Google!

I still haven’t properly delved in to the world of blogs. There are so many, on so many different subjects but these are some of my favourites so far.